Exterior sun visors for vans and small trucks have become increasingly popular. These sun visors have an obvious functional purpose of helping to shade the vehicle passengers from the overhead rays of the sun. However, the increased popularity of the sun visors also can be attributed to a consumer desire to improve the vehicle appearance and styling.
Traditionally, small trucks and vans were used primarily as work vehicles for hauling large, cumbersome cargo which was unsuitable for transport by automobile. The consumer emphasis was upon durability and cargo carrying capacity, as well as upon those attributes of the vehicle which contributed to its operation as a cargo hauler. The use of these vehicles for personal transportation was usually secondary to their use as work vehicles.
More recently, however, small trucks and vans have been used more for both recreational activity and for family transportation. A typical subcompact pickup truck is often sold at a significant savings over a comparable automobile. This has led to the increased use of these small trucks in place of automobiles for person transportation. Furthermore, these vehicles are now being used for off road recreational activities as well as for family camping activities and they often are outfitted with sleeping accommodations as well as bathroom and kitchen facilities.
Because these vehicles are being used for both personal recreation and transportation, consumers have expressed a desire for them to look good; that is, to have styling features typically found in automobiles. This desire to have a good looking stylized vehicle has led to the production of specialized add-on equipment, like the sun visor, which provides a functional purpose, but which also improves the overall appearance of the vehicle.
The van and small truck have significant styling drawbacks, i.e. they have boxlike configurations; the van looking like a large rectangular box, with the pickup truck looking like three interconnected boxes formed by the engine compartment, passenger compartment and cargo compartment. An exterior sun visor which has a sleek, narrow profile provides a more sleek overall appearance to the vehicle.
Aside from achieving a design which is aesthetically pleasing, certain problems result from the incorporation of an exterior sun visor above the front windshield. Forward movement of the vehicle causes air buildup along the bottom surface of the visor due to airflow upward and across the front windshield. When traveling at high speeds, this air buildup, if not dissipated, can rip the visor from the vehicle. Furthermore, it is common among conventional exterior visors to experience what is known as "flutter". Flutter is caused by differences in air pressure across the lower surface of the visor which cause it to bend and twist in a rapid up and down manner. This flutter is not only distracting to the vehicle occupants, but it can also fatigue the visor at those locations where it is mounted to the vehicle and eventually cause it to fall off the vehicle.
A number of conventional exterior sun visors have been disclosed. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,412,698 by Kingsley, there is provided an exterior sun visor having a transversely extending upper lip and downward extending left, right side edges for mounting the visor to the vehicle, and further having an air outlet between the lower surface and upper surface of the visor to relieve air pressure beneath the visor.
Other exterior sun visors have been disclosed in U.S. Des. Pat. No. 283,611 by Kingsley, and U.S. Des. Pat. No. 252,680 by Kingsley et al.
An exterior sun visor was also disclosed in Applicant's co-pending application, U.S. Ser. No. 849,012 filed Apr. 7, 1986 for "EXTERNAL VISOR FOR AUTOMOTIVE VEHICLES"; and in a design application entitled "VEHICLE EXTERIOR SUN VISOR", filed the same date as the present application as U.S. Ser. No. 915,321.